We don’t live in a world of ideas. We live in a world of performances. We should think of ourselves as animals that do things in a world that does things. The world is very active. It doesn’t sit around, as traditional philosophy would like to think, just being there and waiting to be described. It does things” — Andrew Pickering (1995)

Pickering establishes an interesting position for the human agent as just one of the ‘actants’ in an intricate ‘dance of agency’ that is performed with other agents - both human and non-human. In his book ‘The Mangle of Practice’ he posits that materials, machines, facts, theories, conceptual structures, disciplined practices and humans are in a constantly shifting relationship with each other. He calls this becoming ‘mangled’ together in ways that are not immediately knowable or controllable, as the ‘mangling’ is dynamically moulded/influenced by the contextual elements of culture, time and place (the environment). Although he writes as a scientist, I find this point of view very persuasive and applicable to my recent ‘alchemical’ practice.

I have been very aware that the chemical materials I work with, have their own agency and my attempts at control are often unsuccessful. Normally this would be anathema in my artistic practice, as my previous definition of being an artist has been based on the idea of mastery - both acquiring it and teaching it.

​
​In my recent work - ‘Five Experiments’ - I have allowed this dance between the agency of the chemicals and that of my body to leave a permanent record of the interaction. What the end-experiments don’t show is the dynamic nature of the ‘dance’ process as it unfolded. It seemed to be important to use other means to document this - such as video (both 2D & 3D), sound clips, photos, and verbal words/descriptions.

My role in the dance is to ‘amplify’ certain aspects as they occur. This is what I would normally call ‘working back into the piece’. The subtlety here will be to get a sense of where the equilibrium in the dance exists. This can shift radically.

 

Later, in another article ‘Material Culture and the Dance of Agency’ (2010), Pickering applies his scientific theories to other disciplines that use ‘matter’ as part of their practice. He does this in order to undo the linguistic focus in the humanities and social sciences and to re-instate, instead, a focus on practice and the performance of the ‘dance of agency’. It seems to me that part of this dance in my art practice might, however, also include words - either by themselves (poetry) - or as images included in a physical ‘artwork’ using materials and matter. What role could words play in this dance? The scientific nature of the experiments links strongly to objective scientific terminology which designates the experimental processes - such as ‘oxidation’, ‘reduction’, etc. 
Kentridge maintains that the written word in a work of visual art acts in an informative manner. It acts as a visual sign with iconic significance - here I use a word as a signifier of fluid process - 'flow', 'water', (Maltz-Leca, 2018)

In these 'experiments', I moved back into the world of physics and chemistry metaphorically by using an old textbook on fluid dynamics as the supports. The act of working with materials and chemicals on top of the text created a certain tension as I let the chemical-laden polymer flow.  

Elements of opacity and transparency established themselves without my input - they became agents acting according to their own physical and chemical ‘rules’. The textbook became obscured but certain words emerged again as drying took place.

What I was interested in was whether I would be able to get cues from this movement and emergence that would prompt me to respond in a manner that would perhaps make sense to me. The way that I tilted the surface caused the materials to behave in different ways, compared to the way in which a brush or pen would affect them. Gravity mediated the experience.

​The time that the surfaces took to dry became important, as the only action that I could take while this was happening, was to sprinkle chemicals on the surface. 

I had some choice as to whether I used transparent stains made from soaking soil composites, or opaque powders such as carbonates or chlorides. Found objects that were the remnants of previous processes could also be dropped onto the PVA polymer.

As I worked, I was reminded of Siopis' exploration of the materiality of PVA glue as she uses it to comment on the traces of time as it flows into the past. The focus with my experiments is to find where they may be taking me. READ my commentary here ...


 

​